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Leaders and Laggards: A State-by-State Report Card on Educational Effectiveness |
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It has been nearly a quarter century since the seminal report A Nation at Risk was issued in 1983. The measures of our educational shortcomings are stark indeed; most 4th and 8th graders are not proficient in either reading or mathematics. Throughout that period, education spending has steadily increased and rafts of well-intentioned school reforms have come and gone. But student achievement has remained stagnant, and our K-12 schools have stayed remarkably unchanged-preserving, as if in amber, the routines, culture, and operations of an obsolete 1930s manufacturing plant. Despite such grim data, for too long the business community has been willing to leave education to the politicians and the educators-standing aside and contenting itself with offers of money, support, and goodwill. Recognizing the complexity of this task, the Chamber assembled a team of national experts to aggregate and analyze existing state-by-state data and to use that data to construct innovative measures, including evaluating the relationship between spending and student achievement. Our principal partners were the Center for American Progress, a research and educational institute led by former White House Chief of Staff John Podesta; and Frederick M. Hess, Director of Education Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. The Chamber and its partners did not set out to conduct new research; we organized and analyzed existing evidence to inform and promote reform efforts across the nation. The indicators used in this report, in other words, draw upon and reflect the business expertise of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its members.
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